I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for supporting location services (LCS) for terminals.
II. Background
It is often desirable, and sometimes necessary, to know the location of a terminal, e.g., a cellular phone. The terms “location” and “position” are synonymous and are used interchangeably herein. For example, an LCS client may desire to know the location of the terminal and may communicate with a location center in order to request the location of the terminal. The location center and the terminal may then exchange messages, as necessary and possibly in accordance with a positioning protocol, to obtain a position estimate for the terminal. The location center may then return the position estimate to the LCS client.
Several positioning protocols have been defined to support positioning of terminals. These positioning protocols include Radio Resource LCS Protocol (RRLP) and Radio Resource Control (RRC) defined by an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) and C.S0022 (also known as IS-801) defined by an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project 2” (3GPP2). Each positioning protocol supports positioning of a wireless terminal that is communicating with either a specific wireless access type (e.g., GSM or WCDMA) or a wireless access type in a specific set of related wireless access types (e.g., CDMA2000 1XRTT and CDMA2000 EV-DO). For each positioning protocol, it may be difficult or not possible to use the procedures and positioning methods supported by that positioning protocol to locate a wireless terminal that is communicating with some other wireless access type. Multiple existing positioning protocols may be used to support positioning for different wireless access types. However, extensive implementation and testing may be required to deploy these positioning protocols. Further implementation and testing may also be needed to support new positioning protocols for new wireless access types.